Eight Year Fight for Life Ends in Victory

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- Press Releases
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- LDF
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- 80ad9b22-ba92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b

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Press Releases, Volume 6. Eight Year Fight for Life Ends in Victory, 1970. 80ad9b22-ba92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/e907cb76-598f-43bf-8b16-2b795217570f/eight-year-fight-for-life-ends-in-victory. Accessed November 08, 2025.

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    PRESS RELEASE 
egal efense und 

NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. 
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y. 10019 * JUdson 6-8397 

ihe 

bas President 
Hon. Francis E. 

Director-Counsel 

Jack Greenberg 
Director, Public Relations 

Jesse DeVore, Jr. 
NIGHT NUMBER 212-749-8487 

June 1, 1970 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

EIGHT YEAR FIGHT FOR 

LIFE ENDS IN VICTORY 

WASHINGTON, D.C.--After eight years on death row in the Arkansas 

State Prison, William L. Maxwell, a black man convicted of raping 

a white woman, has been spared execution by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who handled the 

legal work for six of the eight years, have expressed gratification 

that the first step in the campaign to abolish capital punishment 

has met with relative success. 

The campaign started in 1965 when LDF sponsored an extensive 

sociological survey,during the summer,of 2,500 rape cases in 

the Southern states, involving both white and Negro defendants, to 

determine objectively and scientifically whether any factors other 

than racial discrimination could account for the high rate of 

death sentences for the Negroes convicted of raping white women. 

Results of this survey were introduced in federal court on 

behalf of Maxwell. 

According to LDF attorneys, still to be decided by the Court 

are the issues of: 

1) the law provides no legal standards for the choice 

between life and death, leaving the decision in the 

unfettered and arbitrary discretion of the jury; 

2) the determination of both guilt and penalty are made 

at the same time by the same jury, forcing the 

defendant either to refrain from placing evidence 

in mitigation on the penalty question before the 

jury or giving up the privilege against self-incrimi- 

nation on the guilt issue. 

These issues most likely will be decided next term by the high 

court. The LDF, which represents all 504 men on Death row, has 

14 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court involving these issues. 

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Eight Year Fight for Life Ends in Victory

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